espresso lawn

Last October, I planted the lawn. Once it grew in, I sprayed it with fish goo and molasses. Now that spring is here, it’s time to baby the grass again, especially since didn’t get much time to thrive before the cold arrived at the end of last season. My latest experiment…

Coffee grounds.

I pick up 5 lb. bags of used coffee grounds — sometimes still warm — from Seven Stars, my local coffee shop. Starbucks also has had a Grounds for Your Garden program since 1995. In season, check your local store for free grounds. (I wanted to try the coffee ground trick last fall but coffee shops were done putting them out for the season.) Check often, because gardeners snap them up quickly.

My neighbors may think I’m crazy when they see me sprinkling java on my lawn, but who cares? It turns out that coffee grounds provide slow-release nutrients to your lawn that green it up, encourage beneficial microbes and attract worms which loosen compacted soil (good for the roots). Bonus: coffee also deters slugs and snails. If you’re skeptical, you can read the research here and find out how to do it here. Poke around online and you can find scads of articles on the subject.

I’ll be scattering some soil and compost over the patchy spots in the grass as well, and then over-seeding. Will let you know how it all turns out. If you drive by and smell espresso, now you know why.

This entry was posted
on Saturday, March 31st, 2012 at 10:31 am and is filed under garden.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.